Edward Zwick
One of the great tragedies is that there is so much less open land available in Japan today. Many Japanese come to New Zealand because of its beauty.
It's one thing to plan and imagine what you want on a film, but when you actually arrive and survey the scene, there's a moment of, 'Oh my God, what was I thinking?'
Anorexia is pernicious and not something which goes away overnight.
It's hard not to want to become Ken Burns at times. I'm interested in being a Ken Burns who reaches that 17-year-old who goes to the multiplex just to see a good story well-told. And if there's history in it, all the better.
Movies, as I grew up loving them, were always about something.
Growing up, movies were something my family and, later, my friends and I would stay up all night talking about. The movies I remember moved me and forced you to think about things that made you know yourself better.
It's always great to do a movie that you find is entertaining, but also can give some sort of political or social message.Collection: Giving
You do these movies, you give it out to the world and you really have no idea how people are going to react to you.Collection: Ideas
I am a fan of movies and there is something about watching film that is burned into celluloid for all time that is now a piece of history. You go watch, being a fan of classic films and my children and their children are going to be watching these movies.Collection: Children
However much I may like to talk about or be interested in a more philosophical or moral agenda, [film] is, ultimately, about narrative. And it's about telling stories that are engaging and dramatic.Collection: Philosophical
There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive - in fact, each can fuel the other.Collection: Challenges
I maintain that no movie can be funny enough. I mean even the most serious, even the most intense movie and I know enough about life to know in those dark moments inevitably someone will say something funny and I will be part of the whole experience.Collection: Mean
I don't think it's a prize when actors and directors or writers and actors work together more than once. You have a trust and a shorthand and a lot of times you even reach the point, where in the process, you don't even have to talk.Collection: Thinking
I never thought about that ever throughout the entire course of my career about choosing a specific role because it would make me seem more man-like.Collection: Men
I've been in plenty of situations where I thought the film would turn out one way or my performance would be looked at one way and it was an entirely different situation.Collection: Different
What I was really overwhelmed with by Africa was its tremendous natural beauty; I got to go to some pretty amazing places. Every other weekend we got a day or two off and go on a safari or the natural wonders of Africa and if anyone gets the opportunity to go there, it's something you have to do in your lifetime.Collection: Weekend
To make a great movie is such a combination of different things that need to come into play to actually make a memorable film and not have a film to fall by the wayside, to have something live on during the years, and one of those elements is the commitment the actors have to their performance.Collection: Fall
And how deeply do I let business considerations affect [screenwriting] choices that might otherwise be more or less esthetic? . . . Do I choose the upbeat rather than the downer ending because I know it will score better at the preview? Can the idea be sold in a single sentence? Can it compete with space aliens and tornadoes and missions impossible?Collection: Ideas